That the alleged extra-terrestrial spacecraft that a significant number of people have claimed to have seen are actually artificially intelligent space probes drifting through space possibly long after their parent civilisation has disappeared but still continuing to function as they were designed?

shel wrote:If we're still talking about AI, I think people intuitively fear the idea, because they know on some level that if AI did happen, the fate of our species would be the same as that of the neanderthals.

How so? An AI doesn't need to compete for resources against us, unlike the neanderthal which essentially got pushed out existence as modern man took over the hunting grounds and so on..

An AI just sits there and uses power, and doesn't need to sit around on a planet to exist.. In fact they would be much better off in space, floating around near the sun, so there's no competition!

Not competition but an evolutionary step, simply. For example, does anyone still use an iPhone 1?

The line between machine and human would become blurred, with artificial organs, neural implant, etc. After a while our species would fade away, but no one would notice probably.

jeeprs wrote:machines and organisms are fundamentally different kinds of things.

From a particular perspective, sure, but there are other even more fundamental perspectives. Fundamentally, machines and organisms are a variety of chemicals, or molecules, or atomic particles, etc., for example.

Rubbish. That view has been completely obliterated by quantum mechanics. There *are* no atoms. There is no fundamental explanatory unit in science. Why do you think physical cosmology now entertains multiple universes, or physics, the Dada-ist 'Many Worlds' interpretation? Not to mention the 95% of the Universe which exists in a format we can even pretend to understand. Get with the times. Or, better still, realize emptiness.

You have the odd tendency to miss the forest for the trees. There are different and more fundamental perspectives whereby machine and organism are the same sort of thing.

Fundamentally, machines and organisms are a variety of chemicals, or molecules, or atomic particles, etc., for example.

And I am saying: they're not. This is called 'scientific reductionism' and I am pointing out what is wrong with it. It has nothing to do with my 'not seeing the forest for the trees'. There is no 'fundamental perspective' in science any more. There are multiple conflicting hypotheses.

You are 'seeking refuge' in the wrong direction .

Learn to do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind ~ this is the teaching of the Buddhas

Fundamentally, machines and organisms are a variety of chemicals, or molecules, or atomic particles, etc., for example.

And I am saying: they're not. This is called 'scientific reductionism' and I am pointing out what is wrong with it. It has nothing to do with my 'not seeing the forest for the trees'. There is no 'fundamental perspective' in science any more. There are multiple conflicting hypotheses.

Do you understand what a 'variety of perspectives' might be? This might be seen as reductionist if it were held as a sufficient explanation of what these things are or whatever. I'm saying that this is merely one way of looking at it and there are a variety of perspectives.

A toaster, for example, could be seen as a kitchen appliance, a "machine," a weapon, a work of art, an antique... or it could be looked at on a more fundamental or elemental level. Some of the component parts of a toaster may be comprised of the chemical element known as iron. Iron also plays an important role in biological organisms. So you see, iron is a common chemical element to both machine and organism. Do you understand?

A human body is a large set of cells. A central nervous system is a large set of neurons...

But this is not true, and understanding why it is not true, is critical in understanding what is wrong with reductionist explanations of the human.

The point about a computer is that it really can be totally understood in terms of binary operations, or the actions of switches. Of course, the complexities of data systems and processes are such that many interesting and even unpredictable things might emerge from computer operations. Nevertheless, everything a computer outputs can be described in 1's and 0's, obviously. And the device is precisely 'a mechanism' within which every component performs one part of the total process.

But you can't analyse a living system solely in terms of its parts. Living organisms act holistically. An embroyo starts with single cells, which are all identical, to all intents and purposes. As the organism grows, the cells actually differentiate themselves, so that some become liver cells, and some brain cells, and some skin cells, and so on. If one part is injured, it will heal, or other parts will act to compensate. This is an immensely mysterious process, still. There is nothing like it in in terms of complexity and scale in any electronic or mechanical devices built by humans. It is one reason that the statement that 'humans are machines' is completely mistaken (although there are many others).

In fact the 'organic' quality of living systems stoutly refuses to yield to mechanistic explanation, notwithstanding several centuries of effort on the part of mechanistic philosophy to explain it in those terms, as Steve Talbott shows in an excellent essay called The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings.

So you are free to say such things, of course, but if you're seriously interested in such questions, rather than simply bantering about them, then it should matter to you why humans cannot be understood as 'collections of parts'.

Learn to do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind ~ this is the teaching of the Buddhas

I read this and kept on wanting to put "yet" and "so far" and "not yet" and "still" in strategic places. Like this:

jeeprs wrote:But this is not true, and understanding why it is not true, is critical in understanding what is wrong with reductionist explanations of the human.

The point about a computer is that (so far) it really can be totally understood in terms of binary operations, or the actions of switches. Of course, the complexities of data systems and processes are such that many interesting and even unpredictable things might emerge from computer operations. Nevertheless, everything a computer outputs can (so far) be described in 1's and 0's, obviously. And the device is still precisely 'a mechanism' within which every component performs one part of the total process.

But you can't yet analyse a living system solely in terms of its parts. Living organisms act holistically. An embroyo starts with single cells, which are all identical, to all intents and purposes. As the organism grows, the cells actually differentiate themselves, so that some become liver cells, and some brain cells, and some skin cells, and so on. If one part is injured, it will heal, or other parts will act to compensate. This is an immensely mysterious process, still. There is nothing like it yet in in terms of complexity and scale in any electronic or mechanical devices built by humans. It is one reason that the statement that 'humans are machines' is completely mistaken (although there are many others).

In fact the 'organic' quality of living systems stoutly still refuses to yield to mechanistic explanation, notwithstanding several centuries of effort on the part of mechanistic philosophy to explain it in those terms, as Steve Talbott shows in an excellent essay called The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings.

So you are free to say such things, of course, but if you're seriously interested in such questions, rather than simply bantering about them, then it should matter to you why humans cannot be understood as 'collections of parts'.

My point, of course, is that your thinking is limited to what we have already done and seen, ignoring the likely consequences of continued development in computing and in the hybridisation that others have already mentioned. The line between human and machine is already blurred, and the gap is being closed from both ends. For instance, we have already outsourced most of our factual memory to hardware - who amongst us has memorised the dhammapada, or two hours' worth of songs and poems, or whole chapters of the Bible as our grandparents' generation routinely did? New hardware is wearable and some is already implantable (bionic ears, for instance). SF has been mulling over these questions for decades. Read Asimov's "Bicentennial Man" if you don't believe me - or even if you just want a thoughtful examination of the issues.

In the case of the prior mindstream, its destiny is determined by its karmic perceptions and inclinations. When it enters a new body, it will not have consciousness of its previous body, will not be aware of it or its transformations, will not feel the cold of the preservation tank. When its prior body revives, it will not feel the revival, the return of heat, and the animation of its form by a new mindstream. Like someone who has abandoned a house that becomes occupied by a new person, it will have no knowledge of that persons presence, what they are doing in the rooms, or how they are treating the house.

Nevertheless the new mindstream and old mindstream in the revived body have much in common. They share the karmic propensities that cause the mind to incarnate into a body of that type, with those specific qualities and capacities. It will also share the karmic propensities that cause it to have certain experiences, attachments, preferences and so forth. However because the body is revive in the future, the more time passes the more its karma that determines its place of living will be different from the original inhabitant. This is because if you were frozen today and the body was revived in a hundred years, society will have changed much, all the external conditions will be different, quality of life, and so forth. In the same way similar houses attract similar types of people. Some people want yards, balconies, decks, tall ceilings, simplicity or elegance. So a simple abode is simple in the 50's and simple today, although external conditions have changed, still in both cases people who appreciate simplicity end up in the same kind of abode.

If you think "When the body is revived, the old person returns to it" you are making the fundamental error in thinking that the mind is ever in ownership of a thing called a body, that the mind is somehow inherently connected to the body, and that the mind is somehow inherently part of the body. Its the error in thinking that the body is anything more than Rupakaya manifesting inseparable from Dharmakaya. If it was the case that the mind was inherently a part of the body, then upon death your mind would experience all the transformations of the physical form, down to the very dispersal of all its elements into atomic particles. The mind would be endlessly divided into numerous consciousnesses until one was conscious of having as many bodies equal to the number of atoms in ones body today.

However we know this is not the case. The body is merely a conditioned thing, a set of conditions that we incarnate into based upon our karma. When a new mind enters the body, it will do so as a result of its karma. When the old mind enters a new body after the bardo, it will also do so based on conditions. The two minds share commonalities in karmic propensities, and they also share the same essential Buddha nature. Furthermore they will share similar experiences because the old body contains memories and impressions stored in the brains neural network. This will form the framework that the new mind will enter into, and although it may appear to be the same person because they will have memories of the same people, places and things, there was never any person in the first place and all that ever existed was ones own deluded and conditioned perceptions of having a body, a self, and so forth.

If the body was part of the mind, not only would it undergo all of its transformations after death, but reincarnation would be impossible since it would not be possible for the mind to separate itself from the body. Instead, what is impossible is to separate minds perceptions of the body from its own essential nature. When this is recognized, one acts with enlightenment towards bodily perceptions, and when it is not one acts with delusion.